chapter five THE INTELLIGENCE OF HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY

“My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, from greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.” - Benjamin Franklin

“Human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.” - William C. Roberts, M.D., Editor-in-Chief, The American Journal of Cardiology

“The pain and suffering inflicted on children by the American diet is so brutal that if it were administered with a stick, parents would be put in jail.” - John McDougall, M.D.1

The Gift

A basic reason that billions of animals suffer confinement and slaughter is our cultural belief that we need to eat animal-derived foods to be healthy, yet one of the most common motivations many of us have to reduce or eliminate animal food consumption is improving our health! Illuminating this paradox requires us to investigate our human physiology and the animal foods we eat, and to reconnect with the perennial understanding that cultivating kindness and awareness improves physical and mental health, while harmfulness and unconsciousness lead ultimately to physical and mental disease. We can realize that we are meant to live in harmony with the other animals of this earth because we’ve been given bodies that actually function better without killing and stealing from them. What a liberating gift! No animal need ever fear us, because there is no nutrient that we need that we cannot get from non-animal sources. The evidence of this is abundant, and we’ll look at some of it in this chapter in order to question the delusion that we need to eat animal foods to be strong, healthy, and real. Both medical studies and the obvious examples of healthy vegan people we see around us tell us that eating animal products is unnecessary, and in many ways is actually detrimental to our health.

Some of us may protest, “Wait a minute! How can eating animal products be unhealthy? It seems so natural!” Let’s take a closer look at the human body. A good way to begin is by observing with fresh eyes how our bodies compare to some of the other animals with whom we share this planet. How soft, hairless, and delicate we humans are! And how physically weak! A human, for example, has only one sixth the strength of a typical chimpanzee.2 We dominate animals not through physical strength, but by using implements and treachery.

We can notice our organ of eating, our human mouth. We see how small it is, how small our teeth are, and how we lack long, sharp canines to tear tough flesh as well as the strong, heavy jawbone and jaw muscles of carnivores and omnivores. We notice also how soft human teeth are, compared to the much harder teeth of carnivorous animals that are able to crush bones to gain access to bone marrow.3 Our teeth and jaw are obviously not designed for ripping flesh and gnawing bones; like frugivores and herbivores we have incisors in the front with molars along the sides for biting off and grinding plant foods.

It is interesting to imagine trying to kill and eat another mammal without using any implements, just our delicate mouth and fine, clawless hands. Could we do it? Could our parents, children, or friends do it? Could any human being do it? Could anyone, or would anyone chase down, say, a deer, cow, pig, sheep, goat, or rabbit in the wild and then, somehow catching her (highly unlikely) fall on her neck with our small, flat human mouth, tear through the fur and skin into the living flesh with our small human teeth, and fill our mouth with the fresh, hot blood of the unfortunate creature? This scenario shows the complete absurdity of what we humans are doing when we eat animal flesh. We have no claws or teeth to rip and rend raw flesh, to bite through fur, feathers, scales, or bones, nor do we have an appetite for fresh blood in our mouths.

We may notice that our jaw is especially hinged to provide side-toside movement. This is a jaw construction shared by herbivorous mammals for grinding various types of plant material; omnivorous and carnivorous mammals have jaws that are rigidly hinged and just snap up and down. We notice further that the purpose of the dominant enzyme in our saliva, ptyalin, is to break down the complex carbohydrates in plant foods into glucose for energy. These carbohydrates are the fuel our bodies were designed to use; animal flesh contains none!

Unlike carnivores, we don’t have strong stomach acids to quickly dissolve flesh, or short, smooth-walled intestines to pass decaying flesh from our bodies quickly. Instead, we have the weaker stomach acids and the much longer and more highly convoluted intestines of herbivores and frugivores for slowly extracting nutrients from plant foods as they pass through and are broken down.4 Our long and convoluted small intestine is decidedly herbivorous, with thousands of little pockets and countless tiny fingers, or villi, that give it an enormous overall surface area - larger than a tennis court! - for our food nourishment to be passed into our blood.5 Our digestive system requires high-fiber foods to keep these intestinal walls clean and functioning properly. Animal foods are not only devoid of fiber but also tend to be more clogging than plant foods as they decompose, leading to constipation, hemorrhoids, colitis, diverticulitis, colon cancer, and other ailments. We have the circulatory systems of herbivores as well, which have difficulty tolerating saturated fat and cholesterol. If a cat, for example, eats a large quantity of fat and cholesterol in the form of animal flesh or eggs, she gets no build-up and blockage in her arteries, but if a rabbit, gorilla, human, or other frugivore or herbivore does this, the arteries become severely coated. If the practice continues, the arteries become clogged and unhealthy, leading to arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, and, in the case of humans, guaranteed demand for drugs and surgeries.

By ignoring the obvious fact that we humans are not designed to eat the large quantities of animal foods typical of our culture, the pharmaceutical-medical establishment actually contributes to the supply of sick people and guarantees what John McDougall, M.D., refers to as its “job security.”6 This is not to imply any sort of conspiracy or that the average doctor is not motivated by altruistic impulses. Yet the medical establishment, like any other industry functioning within our culture’s economic framework, simply follows the path of least resistance and most reliable financial return. To those in the upper echelons of the medical industry pyramid, who help determine political strategies and media/education policies, maintaining the status quo must seem like a basically good idea, so they de-emphasize prevention in favor of drug and surgical treatments and encourage the continued acceptance of an omnivorous diet for humans.

Classifying the human physiology has always been problematic in our culture and continues to be controversial today. While it’s obvious we’re not basically carnivorous, it’s also obvious that we’re not grazing ruminant or ungulate herbivores like sheep, deer, horses, and cows, who can browse on grass and leaves because of having multiple digestive pouches. We may best be classified as frugivorous herbivores, designed primarily for fruits, seeds, vegetables, nuts, and succulent roots and leaves. Most physiologists, though, still claim humans to be omnivorous by nature. Yet even horses can be taught to eat venison, and cows, sheep, and goats are taught to eat and relish the flesh of fish, chickens and pigs in modern confinement feeding operations - how much of our daily food choices are the result of being taught what to eat?

Three points, at least, seem undeniable: that we have choice, that animals suffer because of our choice to eat them, and that the current high levels of animal food consumption are unprecedented and have deleterious effects on our health. It’s well established by fossil remains that early hominids lived primarily on a plant-based diet, and that contemporary foraging cultures do so as well. Indeed, renowned anthropologist Ashley Montagu has stated that these cultures should be called gathering-hunting rather than hunting-gathering.7

Like all animals, we are essentially spiritual beings, manifestations of a universal, loving intelligence that has given us bodies designed to thrive on the abundant foods that we can peacefully nourish and gather in orchards, fields, and gardens. Our bodies reflect our consciousness, which yearns to unfold higher dimensions of creativity, compassion, joy, and awareness, and longs to serve the larger wholes.our culture, our earth, and the benevolent source of all life.by blessing and helping others and by sharing, caring, and celebrating. We have, appropriately, a physiology of peace.

The wholesale killing and abuse of other animals for food runs counter to our essential sense of compassion, so we disguise the disturbing truth of our meals through self-deceptive rationalizations and elaborate methods of cooking, grinding, mixing, coating, seasoning, and covering. At a deep level we know we’ve been given the precious gift of bodies that require no living being to suffer, fear, or die for their feeding - but we throw this gift back in the face of the benevolent universe with the violence required by our food choices.

The Constituents of Animal Foods

Eating the large quantities of animal foods typical of our culture’s meals leads to many problems. As mentioned above, animal flesh is completely devoid of the fiber that we require in our digestive systems and of the carbohydrates that our cells are designed to burn for energy. The saturated fat and cholesterol endemic in flesh, dairy products, and eggs are basically toxic to human beings, contributing to vascular disease. An especially damaging feature of animal fat is that it contains trans fats, which are well recognized as unstable substances that increase the risk of cancer and heart disease. In fact, the National Academy of Science has concluded that “the only safe intake of trans fat is zero.”8

The highly touted animal protein that we are all cowed into believing we must ingest in order to be healthy may have toxic properties also, especially in the large amounts consumed in our culture today. Animal foods contain more concentrated protein than plant foods, which can be unhealthy because it is more difficult for our bodies to derive energy from protein than from the naturally occurring carbohydrates in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and other plant foods. It’s also well established that our bodies can synthesize most amino acids from other amino acids, so that in practice there is little need for people who eat a plant-based diet to “combine” proteins or foods in any particular way in order to get the “right amino acid profile.” That old myth of “complete protein” was based on erroneous conclusions drawn by scientists due to experiments done on rats in the 1920s.9 Even conservative organizations like the FDA and the American Dietetic Association recognize officially in their dietary recommendations that plant-based diets afford humans ample high-quality protein. The ADA has found, “Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases and conditions, including obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer.” It has concluded that “appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”10

According to T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University and lead researcher of one of the largest human nutrition studies yet undertaken, animal protein is completely inferior to plant protein for human needs:

Our study suggests that the closer one approaches a total plant food diet, the greater the health benefit. . . . It turns out that animal protein, when consumed, exhibits a variety of undesirable health effects. Whether it is the immune system, various enzyme systems, the uptake of carcinogens into the cells, or hormonal activities, animal protein generally only causes mischief.11

Since we humans actually need relatively little protein to function well, the excess protein inherent in animal foods drains our body’s energy, which must find a way to dispose of it somehow. Nutritionists understand that our actual protein needs are relatively small: between four and eight percent of our calories should be in the form of protein.12 Virtually all grains, legumes, and vegetables are between eight and twenty percent protein, with some foods, like tempeh, even higher.13 Andrew Weil, M.D., writes,

In our society, protein deficiency is practically nonexistent. Instead, most people consume too much protein, which can also affect health adversely. . . . Remarkably small amounts are enough to satisfy the minimal requirements of the average adult - perhaps two ounces, or sixty grams, of a protein food a day. Many people in our society eat much more than that at every meal. . . . Cutting down on protein will free up energy, spare your digestive system and especially your liver and kidneys from extra work, and protect your immune system from irritation.14

Elsewhere, Dr. Weil writes, “In my opinion, one of the healthiest dietary changes people can make is to substitute soy foods for some (or all) of the animal foods they now eat.”15

According to microbiologist Robert Young, excess protein causes the pH of the body’s tissues to become too acidic. He emphasizes that this acidic condition is unhealthy and signals to bacteria in and around the body that the body is weak, decaying, and dying.16 When any animal dies, as the life ebbs out of it, its flesh becomes increasingly acidic, signaling microorganisms in the region that it is time for them to do their job and break the flesh down so that it can return to the earth and be recycled. According to his research, instead of harboring primarily beneficial bacteria that aid in the various life-support processes of the body, the bodies of human omnivores may tend to harbor primarily destructive bacteria that are simply trying to do their natural job of breaking the body down because it gives signals, by the high acid content of the tissues and the presence of putrefying animal flesh, that it is dying.

The response of the medical establishment, rather than advising us to stop eating animal protein, is to supply antibiotics and other drugs that try to help the beleaguered immune system by killing off pathogens within the body. The unfortunate effect of this practice is that antibiotics are indiscriminate and may also kill off beneficial bacteria as well. The so-called harmful bacteria, which are just performing their vital function in nature, often develop more resistance and thus require ever-increasing dosages of antibiotic drugs to dispatch. This bacterial resistance to drugs is also directly attributable to the routine administration of antibiotics to factory-farmed livestock and fish, and the meat, dairy products, and eggs derived from them may contain high concentrations of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

One result of the stress placed on our bodies by animal products is an increased risk of cancer. It is well known now that every minute a few cells out of the trillions in our bodies become cancerous. A healthy immune system can and does routinely locate and destroy these cells, thus preventing any cancers from developing in a healthy body. When the immune system’s forces are overworked, however, by the trans fats and pathogen load in animal foods, they may be spread too thin to detect cancers in the body and prevent them from developing. The World Cancer Research Fund concluded after it analyzed more than 4,500 cancer research studies that “Vegetarian diets decrease the risk of cancer,” and its primary dietary recommendation was, “Choose predominantly plant-based diets rich in a variety of vegetables, fruits and legumes.”17 Cancer is clearly and positively linked with eating animal foods.

The body, in its wisdom, constantly regulates the blood’s pH, which must stay within a narrow range. With modern Western diets, the body must work hard to keep the blood from becoming overly acidic from the excess animal protein being eaten. To do this, it uses alkaline bone tissue substances such as bicarbonates and calcium. This can lead to the loss of bone density and helps explain the high rates of osteoporosis in cultures where people eat large quantities of acidifying animal foods. Osteoporosis rates among the Eskimo people, who eat an almost completely flesh-based diet, are among the highest in the world.18 Next are northern Europeans and North Americans, who eat high quantities of flesh, eggs, and dairy products.19 While there are other factors that may affect bone health, such as vitamin and mineral intake, levels of load-bearing exercise, and mental and emotional factors, there is evidence that brittle bones and osteoporosis are correlated with eating the large amounts of animal protein typical of our meals.

Scientific studies have linked many other diseases with high intake of animal foods, such as heart disease; diabetes; breast, prostate, and colon cancer; gallstones; strokes; and liver and kidney disease. Many books and articles document these findings,20 but there is little financial incentive to publicize the information, and enormous financial incentive to ignore it and fund pseudo-studies and advertising campaigns to confuse the public about the effects of eating animal foods. According to a recent Cornell University study, eighty-four percent of people are either frequently confused about healthy eating or have completely given up trying to make sense of it all.21 This says a lot about the effectiveness of the propaganda tide generated by the food industry, as well as our tendency to block connections when it comes to the suffering on our plates.

The cholesterol and saturated fat in our blood may create other problems. Besides clogging our body’s veins and arteries and contributing to heart disease and strokes, they may block the capillaries that carry blood to individual cells, resulting in cells that are weak, lacking oxygen and nutrients, and unable to completely cleanse the toxins and carbon dioxide that are the by-products of their aerobic processes. Swimming in this unhealthy environment, they may begin, over time, to degenerate and die off.

One example of this is the increasingly common occurrence of macular degeneration, which causes severe vision impairment and blindness, mostly in older people. Years of eating animal protein, fat, and cholesterol causes the tiny eye capillaries to become clogged with waste debris, and the millions of cells in the macular area of the eye’s retina, the cells specialized for seeing, start dying off or are blocked by the body’s efforts to build new capillaries. Vision deteriorates and macular degeneration follows.22 The same type of scenario may explain many other health degenerations as well, such as cataracts and other types of vision loss, impaired hearing and, particularly, impaired mental functioning caused by clogged capillaries that service vital brain cells.

This clogging of brain capillaries by animal fat and cholesterol may also contribute to the diminished level of actual intelligence in cultures that eat diets high in animal foods. Clogged brain capillaries may reduce the brain’s efficiency and hinder its ability to make connections effectively. This could reduce the intelligence necessary for creativity and spirituality, and may help explain why we act so self-destructively without being able to realize it. Vegetarian children have been shown to have significantly higher IQs than average23 and it’s well known, for example, that Thomas Edison, during the years he worked so hard to discover the secrets of electricity, abstained from eating flesh because he found he could think more clearly and make vital connections more easily on a plant-based diet. Other geniuses like Pythagoras, Leonardo da Vinci, and Mahatma Gandhi abstained from eating animals. Plutarch wrote,

When we clog and cloy our body with flesh, we also render our mind and intellect coarse. When the body’s clogged with unnatural food, the mind becomes confused and dull and loses its cheerfulness. Such minds engage in trivial pursuits, because they lack the clearness and vigor for higher thinking.24

Clogged pathways may also directly or indirectly cause low energy, chronic fatigue and a host of other ailments. In adult males, for example, the arteries in the vascular tissue of the genitals can become clogged by the saturated fat and cholesterol of an animal-based diet, diminishing the natural ability of many men to have an erection. Since disease is far more profitable to the influential pharmaceutical corporations than health is, as the drug industry’s wealth grows, our culture’s ability to recognize the real source of the problem is suppressed.

Kidney disease, kidney stones, and gallstones are another direct result of eating animal foods, since the kidneys have the difficult task of purifying our fatty, acidic blood. Large stones may build up in our kidneys from the excess calcium and uric acid caused by the animal protein in our meals. These stones interfere with the functioning of our kidneys and the body may, in its wisdom, try to pass them out through the urethra, an exceedingly painful process. The excess fat and cholesterol in animal foods can lead to gallstones and gallbladder disease. The liver, as the organ most directly responsible for dealing with the invasion of toxic substances, is overtaxed when we eat dead animals, especially those imprisoned under the abysmal conditions of modern factory farms. These animals’ miserable bodies are so laced with toxins, artificial growth hormones, drug and chemical residues, steroids, tumors, and chronic illness that ingesting them poses a Herculean and unending work for the liver.

The skin, as the largest organ of elimination, is also severely burdened by the toxins in animal foods, and many of the skin maladies and allergic reactions we experience may be attributable to the body’s attempt to cleanse itself by passing toxins out through the skin. Our skin may be adversely affected by the excess fat and cholesterol in dairy products, which can clog the pores and may contribute to acne, allergic reactions, and excess body odor. Many people comment about how switching to a plant-based diet not only helped them lose weight, but also gave them clearer, fresher-looking skin tone, reducing the need for cosmetics.

The Fat of the Matter

The cholesterol and large concentrations of saturated fat in animal foods increase our risk for heart disease and strokes. Their high fat content increases our risk for obesity and the whole panorama of health problems to which being overweight contributes, such as diabetes and cancer. With sixty percent of Americans now overweight, and a concomitant $100 billion (and growing) price tag in health services,25 obesity now kills 330,000 Americans a year and will soon pass tobacco as the leading preventable cause of sickness and death.26

Though we are all unique genetically, it is not natural for any of us to have a high percentage of body fat or to be chronically overweight. We are fat because we eat more calories than we burn, and fat is particularly high in calories. Generally, fat concentrates in animal foods much more than in plant foods, and the animals raised for our plates are especially fat. They are specifically bred, confined, drugged, and manipulated to be as fat as possible. The Butterball turkey we devour for our Thanksgiving ritual feast is so fat she could barely walk and couldn’t mate when alive, a caricature of the wild, sensitive bird that inhabits our forests. The pigs, cows, and chickens on modern factory farms and feedlots are forced to be similarly obese. Are we creating these creatures in our image, or are they creating us in theirs?

To understand obesity and body weight, we simply need to understand what agribusiness animal fatteners figured out long ago: eating excess calories and fat makes confined herbivore animals fat. The same is true for us. The key is to realize and remember that all foods have just three basic components: carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids (fat). Carbohydrates are the necessary fuel we burn for energy. Animal foods are high in fat and protein and have no carbohydrates, except for honey and the lactose in milk. Unrefined complex carbohydrates from whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, and the proteins from either plant or animal sources, are not typically fattening in themselves, because the body must first convert them to fat in order to store them as fat. This has been scientifically demonstrated, as Neal Barnard, M.D., points out: “Scientists have biopsied people’s fat stores and found that virtually all of their fat has come from fat in the foods they have eaten, and almost none of it is produced by carbohydrate.”27

Why do so many of us mistakenly believe carbohydrates are fattening? There are two main reasons. One is that our culture has created and mass-produced a completely unnatural type of carbohydrate, the refined white sugar and white flour that are used by the food industry to make junk foods that are also high in fat. These refined foods have a high glycemic index and break down too quickly in the body, contributing to sugar level imbalances in the blood. Nutritionists correctly agree they are best avoided. The second reason is that these unnatural refined carbohydrates have become the scapegoat of our herding culture, for the last thing we want to admit is that the source of our obesity and other problems is the animal foods that define us. So we erroneously blame “carbohydrates,” which are actually the healthy and natural fuel on which our physiology of peace is designed to run. Low-fat, high-complex carbohydrate diets based on vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and fruits have been shown universally to be the healthiest for humans, as the Oxford-Cornell study under T. Colin Campbell concluded. A 2002 USDA study, for example, found that adults eating high-carbohydrate diets (with a high proportion of grain products, fruits, and vegetables) were more likely to be in the normal weight range category than those eating low-carbohydrate diets.28

Ending obesity will remain difficult, mysterious, complex, and a losing battle as long as we continue to eat diets rich in high-fat animal flesh, eggs, and dairy products. Of course it is possible to eat a high-fat plant-based diet if we consume large quantities of avocados, nut butters, refined oils, potato chips, or other high-fat foods, but it is very easy and quite natural to eat a low-fat, plant-based diet, and virtually impossible to eat a low-fat diet based on animal foods. We are a culture of naturally plant-eating people who consume far too much dietary fat, suffer because of it, and then go on “diets” to lose weight and suffer needlessly. We read millions of diet books, many of which reassuringly recommend eating the flesh and fluids of animals, and in the process become more enslaved to the meat-medical complex. In fact, the most popular diet programs.such as the Atkins Diet, the Blood Type Diet, the Zone Diet, the South Beach Diet, and the ironically named Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet.predictably recommend high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets rich in animal-derived foods. They find such ready acceptance simply because our culture’s living foundation is the killing and eating of animals and we naturally crave the voice of scientific and medical authorities to reassure us that this practice is required by our physiology.

Excess fat puts a considerable strain on our body, and, like a self-imposed prison we carry with us, it can reduce our ability to express, create, and move freely. The fat slows down blood flow, makes the blood gluey, and clogs veins and arteries, causing cells to deteriorate. Unnecessary weight makes the heart pump harder than it should have to, and increases blood pressure. It saps energy and puts a strain on the spine and nervous system. Diabetes is linked with excess fat. The immune system also has to work harder to patrol the host of unnecessary baggage cells that often become dumping grounds for the toxins that come in through eating, drinking, and breathing. They thus tend to be more likely to become cancerous, and indeed obesity has been linked to increased risk for cancer. Obesity often causes us low self-esteem and other psychological problems as well.

The fat we carry around under our skin is mainly the fat of miserable and terrified animals.it’s not surprising we’re anxious to be rid of it! If we based our diet on the whole grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes for which we are designed, we would find the obesity problem in our culture evaporating, along with many other problems. Albert Einstein was correct in saying that no problem can be solved at the level on which it was created. As omnivores, we must go to another level to solve our problem with excess fat, a level where we no longer kill and confine animals by proxy and consume their fat-laden remains.

Toxins

When we get our protein from animal sources, we bring into our bodies much higher levels of toxic contaminants than we do by eating plant foods directly, because livestock feed grains are heavily sprayed with pesticides and these poisons tend to concentrate in animal flesh, milk, and eggs, as Andrew Weil points out:

One problem is that diets rich in animal protein put you high on the food chain, not a good place to be. . . . One consequence of eating high on the food chain is that you take in much larger doses of toxins, because environmental toxins concentrate as you move up from level to level. The fat of domestic animals often contains high concentrations of toxins that exist in much lower concentrations in grains, for example. An independent problem is that the methods we use for raising animal sources of protein further load them up with unhealthy substances.29

The unfortunate animals raised for food are forced to eat large quantities of fish meal and rendered animal flesh and organs, which is totally unnatural for them, in order to fatten them quickly. Manure is also used to “enrich” their feed, and these additives concentrate toxins to an even higher extent than the plant foods the animals are fed. The toxins in the animal foods we eat include carcinogenic heavy metals, deadly PCBs, chemical residues, antibiotics, and the human-created nightmare we now call the prion. Prions are thought to cause mad cow disease and the other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies that have raged through both human cannibal populations (such as the cannibalistic Fore people of Papua New Guinea where a type of human spongiform encephalopathy, called by them “kuru,” was first documented in the 1950s) and animal cannibal populations (such as the farmed sheep and mink populations that developed scrapie and transmissible mink encephalopathy after being fed rendered animal flesh). Similar diseases such as Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (the human equivalent of mad cow) and, according to some researchers, certain forms of Alzheimer’s disease, now threaten human omnivore populations as well because of perverse industry standards that have dictated feeding cows to other cows, and that still feed pigs to other pigs, chickens to other chickens, and pigs and chickens to cows.30

It is also well known that animal foods are heavily contaminated with viruses and bacteria such as salmonella, listeria, E. coli, campylobacter, and streptococcus, which can be harmful if not fatal to people, especially given our already overworked immune systems.31 The urea in animal flesh also contains toxins. It has furthermore recently been shown that cooked animal flesh contains heterocyclic amines, which are carcinogenic chemicals that form during the cooking process. Thus, by not cooking flesh enough, we may expose ourselves to salmonella, E. coli, and other pathogens, and by cooking it, we end up eating cancer-causing chemicals formed by heating the animal fat.

The industrialization of food production has created large-scale Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), also called factory farms, that imprison animals in crowded, toxic environments that reduce labor costs and allow for lower prices of animal foods by relying on cheap fossil fuels and subsidies. To lower costs, the confined mammals, birds, and fish are bred for rapid weight gain and given steroid hormones to further shorten the time between birth and slaughter. Chickens, for example, are now killed when just forty-five days old, compared with eighty-four days in the 1950s.32 These hormones and growth promotants are illegal in Europe because research has shown they increase the risk for cancer and reproductive dysfunction in humans.yet they are approved and used on more than ninety percent of beef cattle in the U.S.33 The stress, stench, insects, feces and urine buildup, insecticides, and overcrowding create ideal conditions for disease, and the antibiotics and other drugs routinely administered also end up in the animals’ flesh, milk, and eggs. There is virtually no oversight on the drugs used on animals in factory farms. Researcher Gail Eisnitz writes,

[U]ntrained workers, not veterinarians, administer drugs to sick animals, often by injection. According to one worker who administers medication, what drugs and dosages they use are a matter of “trial and error.” “I’d use the same needle on a hundred pigs, till you couldn’t poke it in the skin anymore. Or till it broke. Then I’d have to get a pair of pliers and pull the needle out.” The residue of these drugs can wind up in the bacon next to the consumer’s morning eggs.34

For all these reasons, the animal foods in our supermarkets carry high levels of toxic contaminants and pathogens. Because of the wretched conditions in battery egg operations, for example, over 650,000 Americans are sickened every year by salmonella bacteria in eggs; salmonella contamination is found in seventy-two percent of slaughtered chickens.35 Campylobacter, which is the number one cause of gastroenteritis and is linked with Guillain-Barre syndrome, infects ninety-eight percent of store-bought chickens.36 Listeria is a particularly dangerous pathogen frequently found in cheeses, eggs, shellfish, and meats, causing ninety-two percent of the people infected with it to be hospitalized. It is linked with brain damage and cerebral palsy in infants born to infected pregnant women.37 And E. coli 0157 sickens hundreds of hamburger eaters and kills several daily, according to the conservative figures of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.38 Like mad cow disease, this is due to the cruel and irresponsible practices that pervade factory farms, causing animals to arrive at slaughter plants diseased and covered in excrement.

The conditions in slaughter plants today guarantee even more toxic contamination in the meat we eat. Over the last twenty years, line speeds have been rapidly accelerating and USDA inspection and oversight has been diminishing; now with the passage of HAACP (Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points) in 1996, the meat industry basically regulates and inspects itself. Eisnitz tells what workers in signed affidavits say about the slaughterhouse production of the meat we eat:

“Every day I saw black chicken, green chicken, chicken that stank, and chicken with feces on it. Chicken like this is supposed to be thrown away, but instead it would be sent down the line to be processed.” An employee at another plant said, “I personally have seen rotten meat.you can tell by the odor. This rotten meat is mixed with fresh meat and sold for baby food. We are asked to mix it with the fresh food, and this is the way it is sold. You can see the worms inside the meat.” Another worker, “in the department where chicken bones were ground up and processed into chicken franks and bologna,” reported that “almost continuously, the bones had an awful, foul odor. Sometimes they came from other plants and had been sitting for days. Often there were maggots on them. These bones were never cleaned off and so the maggots were ground up with everything else and remained in the final product.”39

Because of the new “streamlined” inspection process, virtually anything is allowed. Affidavits from USDA inspectors who now have diminished authority in slaughter plants repeatedly tell the same shocking story about the dangerous health implications of animal foods:

“I’ve seen birds with cancerous tumors come through regularly, sometimes all day long. While on quality control, I’d pull off those I saw, but I couldn’t possibly catch them all. Right after I’d put them in the condemn barrel, foremen would have the floor workers hang the birds back on the line.”40

Every day, carcasses fall on the floor and are not trimmed before the company puts them back on the line. Floors are filthy, covered with blood, grease, feces, pus from abscesses, and mud. A lot gets embedded into the meat from the high-pressure carcass sprays. . . . 41

Instead of cutting away fecal contamination and tumors, workers now use high-pressure hot water spray, which has the effect of driving contamination particles more deeply into the flesh. In hog and poultry slaughter operations, scald tanks are used:

In the scald tank, fecal contamination on skin and feathers gets inhaled by live birds, and hot water opens birds’ pores, allowing pathogens to seep in. The pounding action of the defeathering machines creates an aerosol of feces-contaminated water which is then beaten into the birds. Contamination also occurs when the birds have their intestines removed by automatic eviscerating machines. The high-speed machines commonly rip open intestines, spilling feces into the birds’ body cavities.42

Chill tanks are also used:

Another example of high-speed contamination occurs when the chickens are immersed in the chill tank. “Water in these tanks has been aptly named ‘fecal soup’ for all the filth and bacteria floating around,” GAP [Government Accountability Project] ’s Tom Devine told me. “By immersing clean, healthy birds in the same tank with dirty ones, you’re practically assuring cross-contamination.”43

Eisnitz writes about going through GAP files from 1996 and discovering the kinds of things inspectors had stopped, but are no longer able to stop:

Rancid meat had been smoked to cover foul odor, or marinated and breaded to disguise slime and smell. Warm meat or sour product was added to acceptable meat then processed. . . . Chickens and hams were soaked in chlorine baths to remove slime and odor, and red dye was added to beef to make it appear fresh. The files described meat packed in boxes with fist-sized clumps of fecal matter. Pieces of lungs, rectums, and dead insects had been found as well. . . . Maggots were breeding in transport tubs and boxes, on the floor, in processing equipment and packaging. Plant personnel shoveled food directly off the floor into edible sausage bins.44

This is just the tip of the iceberg. When we eat animal foods for protein or some other imagined benefit, we are inevitably bringing into our psychophysical being products that are profoundly contaminated. In an attempt to reduce the risk, in February of 2000 the USDA legalized applying nuclear radiation to meat products to kill the dangerous pathogens inherent in them; the long term effects of eating irradiated foods are unknown, but short-term studies show the possibility of creating carcinogens and mutant bacteria. Interestingly, the medical establishment has not been found protesting any of this.

The Meat-Medical Complex

We’ve been trained by our eating habits to look without seeing. As but one example of this, a self-induced sickness, adult-onset diabetes, is now reaching epidemic proportions. Although evidence clearly links diabetes with the consumption of animal foods, millions of dollars are spent searching for a pharmaceutical “cure” for diabetes. Ordinary citizens even good-heartedly donate time to go on walkathons to raise money for “vital diabetes research.” Diabetes is rare among those who eat a plant-based diet but it is a significant risk among people who eat flesh, eggs, and dairy products. It is not difficult to understand why. The excess fat in an animal-based diet may, if not burned, force the body eventually to become resistant to the actions of its insulin, the hormone that pushes fat into fat cells. So the fat, metabolized into sugar, is removed from the body through the urine. As John McDougall, M.D., points out, “This loss of sugar (calories) is the body’s adaptive response to excess calorie intake and storage (body fat).”45 If we stop the intake of animal foods, the body can dramatically reduce or eliminate its diabetic condition, and this has been shown repeatedly.

Even more to be wondered at is the fact that, with armies of apparently intelligent people working on the diabetes crisis, doing all sorts of tests, applying for grants, writing research papers, and sharing their findings, few seem to make these obvious connections. Researchers hurry ever onward, spending money and torturing laboratory animals in the search for “mechanisms” and pharmaceutical bullets that can be patented to profit their employers. And yet, as McDougall writes in a rare instance of someone candidly stating the obvious from within the medical profession,

It is no coincidence that the same diet that helps prevent or cure diabetes also causes effortless weight loss, lowers cholesterol and triglycerides, cleans out the arteries, and returns the body to excellent function. But no matter how much research appears saying the same thing over and over again, the tide is unlikely to change because of the economic incentives for the medical establishment of continued illness and profitable treatments.46

The toxic fat, cholesterol, and protein in our diets are the foundation of a huge medical complex that continues to reap profits from our sickness. Weight reduction is a large and expanding industry, with both alternative and conventional programs offered, most of which seem to distract people from the simple truths and complicate the subject to their own advantage. Lucrative pharmaceutical and surgical invasions, such as drugs, liposuction, stomach stapling and gastric bypass, are often preferred by the medical complex to the simpler measure of advising people to eat a more plant-based diet.

Besides causing obesity, the fat and cholesterol in animal foods clog our arteries, and we again find ourselves reluctant customers of the medical industry’s ingenious, expensive, and marginally effective solutions. These include a whole range of drugs (complete with “side” effects) that artificially thin our cholesterol-laden blood. And there are the surgical procedures as well. These include reaming out arteries, angioplasty, and heart bypass surgery.

With fast-food chain franchises and menus rich in animal products setting the example in hospitals, the medical industry is assured that repairs are temporary and that as patients continue eating flesh, eggs, and dairy products, they will be repeat customers. A permanent reversal of heart disease and arteriosclerosis, as Dean Ornish, M.D., achieved by having heart patients adopt plant-based diets, exercise, and learn to reduce stress, is considered far too radical.47 The enormous irony is that changing to a plant-based diet is considered more radical even than having one’s body repeatedly stabbed, sawed, mutilated, drugged, and potentially killed. Perhaps it is actually more radical, for in a herding culture, nothing is more subversive to the established order of exploitation and privilege than consciously refusing to participate in buying and eating the animal foods that define the culture.

The Placebo Effect

The good news is that our bodies thrive on a conscious plant-based diet, and that this diet is infinitely more compassionate to animals and people and more environmentally sustainable than eating animal foods. Any and all of us can adopt a healthy, low-cruelty way of eating today and need never look back! Why don’t we all rejoice at this discovery and immediately change, transforming our culture, our minds, our lives, our well-being, and our planet? Why do we avert our eyes, grumble, mumble excuses, and resist so strongly? Why are we so paralyzed? I met James Gibson, M.D., in his hometown of El Paso, and asked him if there is any human being on this earth whose physiology somehow requires eating any animal foods. His immediate response was that there is no one like this; every human has the same basic physiology and it is designed for plant foods. Why then, I asked, do people think they need to eat animal foods? “Everyone’s been brainwashed” was his reply.

The power of shared, culturally molded belief is enormous. It forms a force field around us, determining our thoughts, attitudes, and actions. In the herding culture into which we were all born, the core attitude is exclusion and domination, and the core action that reinforces this attitude is eating animals. As our culture teaches our separateness from nature, animals, and the divine, it has also taught us that our mind and body are basically separate. Though this dualistic view is being challenged, it still dominates our worldview, making it difficult to understand that what we believe and how we think and feel have direct reverberations in our body, and that the state of our body intimately affects our mind as well. The power of the placebo effect is based on this unity of mind and body, and it’s amazing how strong it is. There have been many studies done in which the patients given only sugar pills by their doctors showed equal or even greater change in their physical/mental condition than did those who received the actual drugs!48 Expectations are powerful forces. Some people being told they were put on a chemotherapy program for cancer even lost their hair, though they were only given placebos, not drugs. And according to Wayne B. Jonas, M.D., a leader in placebo research and director of the Samueli Institute for Information Biology, placebo surgery.telling patients that a surgery will be performed, but then not performing it when in the operating room.“is as effective or more effective than real surgery.”49 Though our culture’s mechanistic biomedical framework is confused and threatened by the immense power of the placebo effect and sees it negatively, it’s helpful to realize that it’s not negative at all, but wonderfully positive. Understanding this unity of mind and body allows us potentially to unleash enormous healing and vitalizing forces through our thoughts, ideas, feelings, and insights.

Most of us switching to plant-based diets feel the positive effects like a heavy weight lifting off our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies, but some of us feel worse, especially at the beginning. The immense and unrecognized power of the placebo effect helps to explain why this is so, especially if we’re making the switch alone and don’t have the example of healthy, vibrant vegans around us every day. The old programming can easily be activated, reinforced by the ubiquitous advertising and promotion messages of the meat, dairy, egg, and medical industries. It was pounded into us practically from birth, by those closest to us and in the positions of highest authority, that we’d be weak or sick if we didn’t get our “protein”.our cheese, eggs, and meat.and their voices naturally still live within us. Subconsciously, when we switch to a plant-based diet, we may expect we’ll feel weak or get sick, and so our bodies may manifest this. Therefore, when we let go of eating animal foods, it’s important to let go consciously of the ingrained cultural beliefs that we need animal foods to be healthy. We swim in an emotionally charged thought-sea created by generations of omnivores, and this mass consciousness may make it more difficult for some of us to believe at deep levels that we can and will be more vibrantly healthy without eating animal foods.

On top of this, researchers have noticed that placebos are more effective if they are unpleasant. Bitter-tasting and expensive placebos, for example, like bitter and costly drugs, “work” better.because we have to go through some trauma and sacrifice to ingest them, we subconsciously expect their effects to be more powerful. Eating the flesh and secretions of animals is so fundamentally repulsive to us as humans that these animal foods make especially powerful placebos. We find vultures repulsive because they eat carrion, but we eat exactly the same thing! Sometimes it’s euphemized as aged beef. And yet, because we’ve been taught to attribute strength and energy to eating animal foods, that expectation helps our quite miraculous and flexible psychophysiology to partially overcome the essentially disturbing and toxic nature of these foods so we can survive and function. As children, we had no other choice.

There are two other reasons we may experience difficulty switching to a plant-based diet. One is that when we stop ingesting the saturated fat, cholesterol, and other toxins in animal foods, our body may take this as a welcome opportunity to clean house. Fruits and vegetables are natural blood cleansers and detoxifiers, and as our body switches from a mode of survival and of storing toxins away in our fat cells to a mode of cleansing, renewing, and reducing the fat cells, stored toxins begin to flow into our bloodstream to be eliminated. Instead of feeling better, we may feel worse for a week or two as drug and toxin residues are cleaned out. This is actually a cause for rejoicing because those poisons are no longer lingering in our tissues.

Keep in mind that if we go to a medical practitioner for advice during this cleansing time, we will probably find that he or she is antagonistic to a plant-based diet and may derail the beneficent cleansing, warning us of the dangers of “fad diets” and counseling us that we “need” animal foods to be healthy. We may unfortunately return to the mainstream of animal brutality, convinced that we “tried” being a vegetarian but our doctor said we weren’t getting enough protein, or iron, or vitamin B-12, or yang energy in our food, or that our blood type requires us to eat some animal protein, or some other excuse that dis-empowers us from stopping the cycle of violence we are enmeshed in with our acculturated eating habits.

It’s helpful to remember that with so much medical information to be conveyed in medical schools, teaching nutrition is a low priority. Most doctors know little about nutrition because less than a quarter of medical schools have a single course in nutrition, and what little they do learn is heavily influenced by the meat, dairy, and egg industries as well as by our culture’s underlying orientation. This influence touches those who study nutrition as their profession as well. Marion Nestle demonstrates in Food Politics that the animal food industries have considerable financial resources and exert enormous influence on our government at all levels, and on science and on the health profession as well. There is no similar force advocating for plant foods. It’s well known that the animal food establishment funds university research, publishes promotional pieces posing as educational materials, and engages in questionable arrangements with professional medical research organizations. To give but two examples of this, the American Cancer Society and other cancer research foundations work with the meat industry sponsoring annual steak banquets called “Cattlemen’s Balls” to raise money for cancer research! And the American Heart Association has given the Subway fast food chain the rights to its “fighting heart disease and strokes” logo after receiving ten million dollars in “donations” from Subway, despite the chain’s menu being made up primarily of the processed meat and cheese foods that are known to increase the risk for heart disease.50

An old saying has it that if we spend our money in the first half of our life on a rich, meat-based diet, we’ll spend our money in the second half of our life on doctors. So when we stop eating animal foods, we may feel worse for a few weeks as we cleanse, but the benefits of the change are clear, as Andrew Weil observes: “Studies consistently show vegetarians to be healthier and longer-lived than meat eaters.”51

The third reason some of us have difficulty switching to a plant-based diet is that we don’t know how to prepare vegan meals that are tasty, nutritious, and convenient. It’s quite easy to do, but there is learning and unlearning to go through. Fortunately, there is an ever-increasing supply of vegan and vegetarian cookbooks, cooking classes, groups, programs, and convenience foods. For one thing, we may give up flesh and continue to eat dairy products and eggs. These products contain at least as much cruelty, toxins, cholesterol and animal protein as flesh does, so little improvement will likely be noticed. (This is why it may be best for some not to switch gradually to a completely plant-based way of eating, but to do it all at once. Becoming a “pescovegetarian,” for example, and continuing to eat dairy, eggs, and fish, we may find we’ve given up enough to be irritated but not enough to notice any appreciable improvement in our body-mind.) We are also unlikely to notice significant improvement if we switch to a completely plant-based diet but favor vegan junk food.loaded with hydrogenated fats, white flour, white sugar, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and chemicals.

It’s simple and easy to get all the nutrients we need on a plant-based diet. Eating a variety of vegetables, grains, nuts, legumes, and fruits will ensure that we get the vitamins, minerals, and protein we need for optimum health. The two primary substances that a vegan diet may be lacking are vitamin B-12 and omega-3 fatty acids. Vitamin B-12 is a naturally occurring substance that is plentiful in our soil and water and that we now may have difficulty obtaining in sufficient supply only because modern methods of water purification and of industrial food washing remove it from our plant foods and drinking water. A regular supplement is therefore recommended, and is easily obtained in fortified soy milk and other vegan products. And because of our modern food refining practices that over-supply us with omega-6 fatty acids, it’s a good idea for vegans to eat walnuts and flax seeds or flax oil for essential omega-3 fatty acids. Two tablespoons of ground flax seeds daily is considered sufficient. A good resource covering the nutritional aspects of a vegan diet is Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina, two registered dieticians.52

It’s ironic that the burden of justifying possible nutritional deficiencies rests on vegans (“where do you get your protein/vitamin B12/ etc.?”), because research shows that vegans typically have twice the fruit and vegetable intake of people eating the standard American diet. In recent studies, vegans had higher intakes of sixteen out of the nineteen nutrients studied, including three times more vitamin C, vitamin E, and fiber, twice the folate, magnesium, copper, and manganese, and more calcium and plenty of protein.53 Vegans also had half the saturated fat intake, one-sixth the rate of being overweight, and, while vegans were shown to be at risk for deficiencies in three nutrients (calcium, iodine, and vitamin B-12), people eating the standard American diet were at risk for deficiencies in seven nutrients (calcium, iodine, vitamin C, vitamin E, fiber, folate, and magnesium).54

Buying organically grown produce, grains, beans, and nuts is important not just because they’re higher in vitamins and minerals, but also because the toxic runoff from conventional agriculture poisons streams and people, and kills birds, fish, insects, and wildlife. The amount of toxins used to produce a head of lettuce or bowl of rice is still, however, far less than that used to produce a hot dog, cheese omelet, or piece of catfish because animal foods require enormous quantities of pesticide-laden feed grain to produce.55

As far as taste goes, those of us who follow a plant-based diet invariably report that we discover new vistas of delicious foods that we hardly knew existed. Plant-based cuisines from the Mediterranean, Africa, India, East Asia, Mexico, and South America all offer delicious and nutritious possibilities. As our taste buds come back to life, we discover more subtle nuances of flavor, and as our hearts and minds relax and rejoice in supporting more cruelty-free foods, the foods become increasingly delicious. Due to the mind-body connection, they also become more nutritious as we begin to enjoy partaking of the attractive and regenerating fruits and herbs of our earth. Mindful eating is the essential foundation of happiness and peace.

Our Body, Our Friend

When our intelligence is reduced, we use drugs to force our body as we would force an innocent animal. For example, when our body in its wisdom attempts to cleanse itself of the congestion and toxins introduced to it through our diet, and generates a cold or fever to aid in this cleansing process, we often ingest pharmaceuticals in order to try to suppress the uncomfortable symptoms, thus derailing the natural healing process. Intelligence would realize that our body is our most precious friend. It works ceaselessly to maintain health and harmony and is our vehicle for expression and experience in this world. What could be more valuable and worthy of care and protection? It never works against us, but always does its best with whatever it has to work with. It is a shame that so many of these immeasurably valuable gifts from the loving source of all life, beautiful expressions of spiritual creativity, are distracted and harmed unnecessarily, saddled with heavy burdens that were never intended or foreseen by nature, and tragically destroyed by ignorance, fear, and a lack of caring. Radiant physical health is such a treasure; yet how rare it is today, particularly among those of us who abuse animals for food.

It’s actually quite obvious why heart disease and cancer “run in the family.” Everyone in the family has their legs under the same dinner table!56 As children we not only eat like our family but also soak up our inner attitudes from them. Unless we metaphorically leave home and question our culture’s food mentality and the enslaving propaganda of the meat-medical complex, we will find it difficult to discern our unique mission and grow spiritually. Spiritual health, like physical and mental health, urges us to take responsibility for our lives, and to dedicate ourselves to a cause that is higher than our self-preoccupations.

By relying on the meat, dairy, egg, pharmaceutical, and medical industries that have been unwilling to make the connections we’ve been discussing, our culture has created the conditions for escalating disharmony and bondage. Agribusiness is continually trying to produce more for less through breeding, intensive confinement, and use of hormones, antibiotics, drugs, and feed grains that are “enriched” with fish, manure, and rendered animal by-products. The irony is this: by unnaturally fattening and toxifying vegetarian animals on animal flesh, we unnaturally fatten and toxify our vegetarian bodies on their animal flesh, milk, and eggs, and abuse the animals and ourselves to sickness, slavery, and early death. It’s all unnecessary, and it’s in our power to stop it.

Many people, glimpsing the outlines of the above, give up “red meat” and feel that by so doing, they are basically vegetarians and thus eating a healthy diet. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. The flesh of pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other farmed animals is just as high in cholesterol, acidifying protein, misery, fear, adrenalin, and the toxic residues of chemicals and drugs as is the flesh of cows, and perhaps more so. If the flesh is certified “organic,” it may have fewer toxic residues, but it still has all the rest. The flesh of more exotic animals, like pheasant, grouse, ostrich, emu, buffalo, deer, rabbit, horse, frog, alligator, and turtle, is similarly unhealthy and causes at least as much misery. All animals suffer enormously and unnecessarily so we can dine upon their brutalized bodies.

Others may go a step farther, giving up “meat” entirely but continuing to eat fish, shellfish, dairy products, and eggs.foods they believe are healthier than “meat.” Before examining that belief more deeply in the following chapters, it may be helpful to recognize that concern about our own personal health, while necessary, is in some essential ways a shallow, self-preoccupied, and thus shaky reason for abstaining from animal foods. The most solid and enduring motivations for action are ultimately based on caring for others.in this case imprisoned animals, wildlife, starving people, slaughterhouse workers, and future generations, to name some of those damaged by our desire for animal foods. The health advantages of a plant-based diet are the perquisites of loving-kindness and awareness, and the diseases and discomfort caused by animal foods are some of the consequences that follow from breaking natural laws. If our only motivation for not eating animal foods is our own health, it’s easy to “cheat” a little here and there and pretty soon go back to eating them again. When our motivation is based on compassion, it is deep and lasting, because we understand that our actions have direct consequences on others who are vulnerable. We never “cheat,” because that means directly harming others, which we are unwilling to do. While there are thus many “former vegetarians,” it’s unlikely that “former vegans” were ever actually vegans; it seems doubtful that compassion authentically attained is ever lost.

The main reason for outlining some of the negative health consequences of eating animal products in this chapter was to help disabuse us of the incorrect notion that our bodies somehow “need” animal foods. This erroneous belief opens gateways into incalculable dimensions of misery. The suffering that food animals undergo, the suffering of those who eat them and profit by them, the suffering of starving people who could be fed with the grain that feeds these animals, and the suffering we thoughtlessly impose on the ecosystem, other creatures, and future generations are all interconnected. It is this interconnected-ness of suffering, and its reverse, of love, caring, and awareness, that calls out for our understanding.